The present invention relates to a connector, more particularly, to a connector through which a contact pad of a flexible printed circuit board is connected against terminals of an electronic component.
A flexible printed circuit board (FPC) is one kind of the printed circuit boards. Since the flexible printed circuit board has a property of flexibility, it can be used in a three-dimensional wiring according to the size and shape of products and it is quite suitable to compact and light electronic products. Hence, the flexible printed circuit board is usually applied in highly delicate products such as a notebook computer, a portable optical disc drive, a printer, a cellular phone, a digital camera and electronic equipment for motor vehicles etc. Many integrated circuits (ICs) of different functions are mounted on the surface of the flexible printed circuit board. The ICs are combined with the flexible printed circuit board by a packaging technology of chip on film (often referred to simply as COF). The combined ICs and the circuits distributed on the surface of the flexible printed circuit board are mutually electrically communicated, and the above circuits are extended to an end portion of the flexible printed circuit board and a contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board is thus formed. The contact pad can also be called as an electrode or a terminal. The ICs on the surface of the flexible printed circuit board are connected through the contact pad to remote electronic components such as speakers, receivers, microphones or oscillators etc., so as to achieve the goal of signal connection.
Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic location diagram of a contact pad 12 of a conventional flexible printed circuit board 10 in related to a speaker 16 of a mobile phone. In order to clearly display the connection between the flexible printed circuit board 10 and the speaker 16, as shown in FIG. 1, the front panel of the housing of the mobile phone is laid face downward, and a container 18 for receiving the speaker 16 is mounted at an appropriate position of the housing. The bottom of the container 18 has sound apertures 181. The front of the speaker 16 is combined to the bottom of the container 18 and corresponds to the sound apertures 181, and terminals 161 are mounted on the back of the speaker 16. In the prior art, the methods used for combination of the flexible printed circuit board 10 and the speaker 16 mainly includes: (a) a welding method, in which the contact pad 12 of the flexible printed circuit board 10 and the terminals 161 of the speaker 16 are welded together directly by tin solder; (b) a conductive rubber contacting method, in which conductive rubber is used to combine the contact pad 12 of the flexible printed circuit board 10 with the terminals 161 of the speaker 16; and (c) a leaf spring contacting method, in which the terminals 161 of the speaker 16 are respectively designed to be a leaf spring structure and protrude from the back of the speaker 16, and then the contact pad 12 of the flexible printed circuit board 10 is placed on the terminals 161, and lastly the back panel (not shown) of the housing is used to cover the contact pad 12 of the flexible printed circuit board 10 and the speaker 16 up so as to maintain the contact pad 12 in contact with the terminals 161.
In the aforesaid methods, the materials used in the welding method would pollute the environment, and after completion of the welding, the welding is difficult to rework if the speaker 16 is ineffective and must be replaced. Furthermore, the conductive rubber contacting method costs high. The leaf spring contacting method has no disadvantages of the above-mentioned two methods, but the contact pad is in ill contact with the terminals since coverage of the back panel of the housing is difficult and the contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board is liable to slip out of the surface of the terminals of the speaker.
Therefore, the related RandD engineers have made every effort to improve the combination of the contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board with the terminals of the speaker and to attain the products of low costs and superior combinations.
The objective of the present invention is to provide a connector so as to secure the combination of a contact pad of a flexible printed circuit board and terminals of an electronic component more firmly and to facilitate the combining operation.
The connector of this invention includes a body and a reinforcing plate. The body has a container for receiving an electronic component, and elastic terminals are mounted on the back of the electronic component and protrude from the container when the electronic component is received in the container, and two parallel sliding channels are mounted on the two sides of the body corresponding to the two sides of the elastic terminals of the electronic component. The reinforcing plate is combined with the back of the contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board so as to increase the stiffness of the contact pad without influencing the electrical function of the contact pad, and the two sides of the reinforcing plate can cooperate with the two parallel sliding channels of the body such that the two sides of the reinforcing plate can be slipped into or drawn out from the sliding channels.
When the connector of this invention is operated, the two sides of the reinforcing plate are slipped into the two parallel sliding channels of the body, wherein the contact pad with which the reinforcing plate is combined faces to the terminals of the electronic component which is received in the container. Hence, after the reinforcing plate are slipped into the two parallel sliding channels of the body, the contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board is simultaneously connected against the terminals of the electronic component.
Preferably, a positioning protrusion can be mounted at an appropriate location of the surface of each sliding channel of the body in this invention, and also an indentation is mounted at the corresponding location of each of the two sides of the reinforcing plate. After the reinforcing plate is slipped into the sliding channels, the positioning protrusions are respectively locked into the indentations so as to have a firmer combination of the body with the reinforcing plate and to keep the contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board in contact with the terminals of the electronic component.
Preferably, the body of the connector of this invention and the electronic component may be formed in a piece. The contact pad of the flexible printed circuit board can be firstly combined with the electronic component to be a module by means of the connector, and then the whole module is assembled into the housing of the product so as to increase convenience of the combining operation of the contact pad and the terminals.
Preferably, the connector of this invention can be applied in highly delicate products such as a notebook computer, a portable optical disc drive, a printer, a cellular phone, a digital camera and electronic equipment for motor vehicles etc., and the electronic components to be connected can be speakers, receivers, microphones or oscillators etc.
In one of the examples of this invention, the connector is applied in the speaker of a cellular phone. The container of the body is combined onto the front plate of the housing of the cellular phone, and the bottom of the container has at least one opening thereon. After the speaker is received in the container, the sound of the speaker is come out from the opening(s) and the area of the opening should be smaller than that of the speaker. Furthermore, if the flexible printed circuit board and the body of the connector are not on the same level, the flexible printed circuit board may be formed as a stair-like shape to have the level of the contact pad at the edge portion of the flexible printed circuit board matched up to the height of the body of the connector so as to keep the contact pad in contact with the terminals of the speaker of the body.